


Cause and Effects of Cataclysm

by agrestenoir



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25926670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agrestenoir/pseuds/agrestenoir
Summary: What happens when creation isn’t there to reign destruction in?Chat Noir learns the hard way.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 57





	Cause and Effects of Cataclysm

i.

When it happens, it’s an accident.

There’s a battle, like how all stories start, with an akuma who could make mirages, things that didn’t exist, and you can’t notice till you’re right next to them and that far-flung hope you thought you saw is nothing more than a trick of light. Chat Noir can hear the echo of _Lucky Charm!_ nearby, so he knows he’s close. He thinks he sees the akuma, standing tall on the rooftop overlooking the city square, and so he summons _Cataclysm!_ to cut them down. It’s not until he’s touching the mirage, hands deep in Ladybug’s chest, that he realizes his mistake.

This is not an akuma. This is his partner.

He just _Cataclysm!ed_ Ladybug.

* * *

ii.

Cataclysm was never meant to be used on a person.

Having the power of destruction and chaos at the tips of his fingers comes with a whole slew of rules and regulations, and the thought of using that power on someone else—to hurt them, to lose them—is unfathomable. Plagg has certainly never mentioned it either. He’s watched Cataclysm at work before though, seen the waste and decay like a river without a dam, and he wonders what would happen if… if… if…

Well, he’s never reached an answer before. 

(He has an inkling of what happens though. He’s a ticking bomb of death and destruction. It’s only a matter of time before he explodes.)

* * *

iii. 

Ladybug doesn’t scream.

She just stares at his hand pressed against her chest, claws digging into the skin above her heart, like she can’t believe this is happening. Blue eyes, as wide and open as the sky on a sunny morning, are locked as the inky blackness spreads out across her torso, down her legs, and over her arms. She opens her mouth, half-finished words falling from her lips, but they’re lost in the shock that fills the space between them.

Chat Noir is scared. Ladybug still doesn’t scream. 

But… But then there’s a _shriek_ , a wailing cry that fills the air, and it echoes past chimneys and rooftops and superheroes and supervillains.

Ladybug’s lips haven’t moved.

And then Chat Noir stares at his hand, at the chaos spreading, at the red and black-spotted suit cracking beneath his hands, at the swirls of red which fade away into nothingness like smoke to a fire, at the brilliant, fiery earrings Ladybug wears as they blink into darkness as if someone has turned off the lights.

His _Cataclysm!_ hasn’t killed Ladybug. It’s killed her kwami.

* * *

iv.

Life is a product of both good luck and bad.

The way the world works is that you can’t have one without the other. Luck—both good and bad—make things happen. They’re pulling the strings to cause the vagaries of fate and destiny, bringing a storm when the ebb of the tide seems too calm on sunny day. They chase each other over lands and oceans as calamity and tranquility follow in their wake. 

In Taoism, Yin Yang is the concept of duality forming a whole: night and day, good and bad, life and death. You can’t have one without the other, and it’s likely the two sides will never survive on their own. They are in perpetual balance with each other—neither absolute nor static, through the ups and downs and verse the battles of outside influences. 

They’re sun and moon, light and dark, creation and destruction. It’s imperative for _everything_ that they always stay together because you can’t have one without the other.

You know how it is. If you split a whole then they need to find a new balance, no matter what it takes. But if you destroy a whole, then the pieces are lost, forever searching, and nothing will be able to stop them. 

What’s destruction without creation? What’s death without life? What’s chaos without control?

 _Nothing_ , Chat Noir realizes too late, _nothing at all._

* * *

v.

With the death of Tikki, the holder of the Miraculous of Creation, destruction and chaos is free to spread, and Adrien can’t control it. What’s already been unleashed can’t be stopped by itself. The waters cannot hold a hand to the flood and command it to _halt!_. It’s why he has Ladybug, to reign him in when he’s lost to the darkness, but without Ladybug, the girl behind the mask has no control over the part of him that is Chat Noir, and it just… keeps going. 

Ladybug’s suit cracks and crumbles into dust, lost in the breeze of the early morning, disappearing into the air as if it has never existed in the first place. Sweet, gentle Marinette stands in the place his partner once occupied. Inside, Adrien’s heart bangs wildly against his ribs, trapped in a cage of blood and bone, desperate to be heard. ( _Of course, it’s her,_ a small part of him thinks, _who else could Ladybug have been?_ ) 

But he can’t talk, he can’t move, he’s only lost to the call of _Cataclysm!_ and the screams of Plagg in his ears. Plagg has lost all sense of control over his power, of everything that makes him Chat Noir, and he’s leaking. The chaos is spreading. Death is imminent.

It covers the rooftop they’re standing on, inky veins slithering down brick walls and wrapping around chimneys like vines, searching and searching for something it needs. It stops when it reaches the pavement, spreading out into the streets, and wraps around the nearest people it can find. 

It crawls over their legs like rope, digging into their skin and sucking the very life from their body. They don’t even have a chance to scream. They drop to the ground, the very Earth they were born from, cold and quiet and still—dead in all the ways that matter.

Cataclysm doesn’t care. It keeps spreading.

* * *

vi.

Plagg is still screaming in his ear, like someone has torn a piece of him away, and in a way, Adrien guesses that’s what it feels like. Tikki was Plagg’s other half, after all, and to lose half of yourself is to lose everything. 

Adrien can only sob, cry out in agony, because he’s hurting people, killing them, and _he can’t stop it_. He can feel each life he snuffs out like a candle, feel the last beat of their racing hearts, and the panic that’s their last, dying thought. Even if he somehow makes it out of this, he’ll always remember what death feels like.

* * *

vii.

Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, of Paris dying beneath his fingertips, he makes out the sight of Marinette’s glittering blue eyes full of tears. She’s whispering words in his ear like he can hear them, like they’re supposed to matter, like he feel her hot breath tickling his cheek or her warm hands cupping his face, but he can’t he can’t he can’t _he can’t._

Adrien was lost the moment Chat Noir took over.

 _Cataclysm!_ continues its trek over the city. People die, buildings crumble, and Paris screams.

* * *

viii.

 _Guess I’m fresh outta luck_.

The thought makes him cry harder, shoulders shaking, hands still pressed into the ground. It’s a joke he tells Ladybug on a regular basis, earning him a chuckle or a snort, but no matter how much it makes them smile, they both know it’s not true. Because he’s the epitome of bad luck and she’s the manifestation of good luck. Whether good or bad, luck is still luck. Having none of it would be the worst punishment imaginable.

A luckless life isn’t really a life at all, Adrien reckons, not one worth living anyway.

But…

But then it hits him: _luck_.

Ladybug had called for a _Lucky Charm!_ before _Cataclysm!_ had hit her.

Which means, somewhere in the world, there’s one last remnant of good luck. With that, there’s a chance.

“L-Lucky C-Charm,” he manages to get out between the harsh gasps and sobs, staring into Marinette’s eyes with a desperation he’d never be able to describe.

After a moment, she nods. She understands.

(Of course she does. She’s his partner for a reason.) 

_Miraculous Ladybug!_ always heals, even the effects of _Cataclysm!_.

* * *

ix.

Marinette finds it.

 _Miraculous Ladybug!_ falls from her lips, reverberating through the still and silent streets, and Chat Noir feels Plagg come back, awake and present at the back of his mind, and his sobs of terror turn to relief.

Cataclysm’s veins retreat as quick as they’d attacked, following their paths back to his hands, and soon the chaos is a memory buried deep in the darkness of his Miraculous. People stand up, looking around wildly for some explanation. The builds shoot up as easily as they’d come down, and there’s not a bit of debris or dust to mark they’d even fallen.

Ladybug stands before him in all her glory—her Miraculous back, suit restored, and Tikki—alive and whole—with her.

“I’ll be back,” she tells him with a soft hand on his shoulder. There’s still an akuma, the day till needs to be saved, and Ladybug has a job to do.

Still shaking, propped up on trembling hands and knees, Chat Noir manages a sharp nod. When she leaves, he doesn’t move.

He can still hear the screams.

* * *

x.

Later that night, they’re curled up atop the Eiffel Tower, together and touching and alive and breathing.

Paris has forgotten. 

They have not. 

(They never will.)


End file.
